Gov. Palin May Want to Reconsider Dividing U.S. into
Good and Bad: Red States Lead in Suicide and Murder
Cant divide good and bad by senior citizen
populations 2004 reds dominate large and small states
Oct. 21, 2008 - Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican
vice presidential nominee, may be shocked to learn that of the ten
states with the highest suicide rates, nine are red states that
supported President George Bush in 2004. This list even includes her
home state of Alaska and Sen. John McCains home state of Arizona. She
may want to rethink her suggestion that some parts of the nation are
less American than others after seeing these facts.
The only blue state that made the top ten for
suicides was Oregon at number ten.
On the other end of the scale, the ten states with
the lowest suicide rates are all blue states that backed Sen. John
Kerry. They also include the home states of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen.
Joe Biden, the Democratic nominees for president and vice president.
It does not get any better for her if you compare
states with the highest murder rates of the top ten, all are red
states. The ten states with the lowest murder rates are all blue states.
But, maybe she likes states that are not too
crowded with senior citizens. Her state, Alaska, has the fewest senior
citizen and the lowest percentage of senior citizens of any of the 50
states. There are only 47,935 people in the whole state that are age 65
or older.
There are, however, lots of red states among the
ten states with the fewest seniors seven. So, she may feel comfortable
there.
At the other end, however, there are also lots of
red states with lots of senior citizens. Florida, of course, is number
one but it is joined by six other red states in the top ten states for
seniors.
Choosing the most American states by their senior
population just doesnt work. For some reason, most of the blue states
fall somewhere in the middle, while the red states capture the crowns
for fewest and most seniors.
That kind of leaves us with murder and suicide
rates as the best divider of the blue states and the red states. But,
surely, thats not what Gov. Palin had in mind.
She apologized today for the remarks.
Democrats and others criticized Palin for seeming
to imply that some parts of the country are more patriotic than others.
Palin denied that was her intention in an interview
with CNN on Tuesday.
"I don't want that misunderstood," Palin said. "If
that's the way it came across, I apologize."
● The states with the high suicide rates, as
reported by the National Vital Statistics Reports for 2005 are:
States with Highest Suicide Rates 2005
State
Rate per M
1 Montana
22.0
2 Nevada
19.9
3 Alaska
19.7
4 New Mexico
17.7
4 Wyoming
17.7
6 Colorado
17.1
7 Idaho
16.0
8 Arizona
15.9
9 South Dakota
15.6
10 Oregon
15.4
States with Lowest Suicide Rates 2005
State
Rate per M
41 Delaware
9.8
42 California
8.9
43 Illinois
8.5
44 Connecticut
8.4
44 Hawaii
8.4
44 Maryland
8.4
47 Massachusetts
7.5
48 Rhode Island
6.6
49 New York
6.2
50 New Jersey
6.1
51 District of Columbia
6.0
● The statistics for the murder rate by state
is from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2007
